Mass Effect: Andromeda News Update | Ryder Family Importance, Book Details, Developer Interviews & M

I have to admit, I'm actually mildly concerned about the large increase in companion dialogue. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about having even more interaction with teammates.

HOWEVER.

I feel like this could potentially be more indicative of the division of the word budget, rather than a 20% increase in total script size. If that's the case, giving companions more dialogue would come at the expense of non-critical NPC dialogues, leaving us with an unpalatable DA:I situation where the sidequests are boring and empty of meaningful NPC interaction. After DA:I, I think I might be willing to sacrifice some companion content to bring the other content up to par.

Fingers crossed that they just spent more money and we get more of both.

When you mentioned about having romances with characters that weren't squadmates in the trilogy, you forgot to mention Steve.

Regards to all the extra dialogue for squadmates. I like to see more dialogue for the crewmembers on the ship that aren't squadmates as well.

About the trophies. I like for any online trophies not be required to obtain the platinum trophy

forgot to add. I gave you a like for showing Samantha and her toothbrush. excellent

Re: trophy & achievements suggesting work is almost done and the game is being polished.

Your speculation is contradicted by sjosz's tweets, which suggest he's actively working on level design and development. If the game is in polishing phase, new levels wouldn't be in progress. Unless they are DLC.

Re: Initiative patches

So do you think the Andromeda Initiative is a new patch of a separate initiative, or is it the replacement for the Pathfinder Initiative? A later iteration? That's what I think, they changed the name over the course of refining the story and made a new patch to match.

Well, once the game is set and done, and all that's left to do is polish, what else is there for a level designer to do other than creating new levels for future DLCs?

Ehhhh, you'd be amazed how many problems a game can create on its own. Seemingly out of nowhere.

The gaming industry seems to like to refer to bug fixing crunch time as "polishing" though. I know someone who worked at UbiSoft's QA during the development of the first Watch Dogs game, and when that game got a six month delay for "additional polishing", it was actually crashing all over the place.

"Polishing" sounds so much nicer than "we're doing overtime because more bugs than Klendathu". It's probably better for shareholder blood pressure, too.

Witcher 3 was "content complete and in QA/polishing" for six months, so it's not completely impossible, but I agree with you. That is what I meant to say with my post, maybe not very eloquently. Don't think "polishing" means "it's practically done and we're just making it extra shiny".